Recently, a firebrand preacher calling himself “Brother Matt” came to campus passionately preaching the sins he saw and encouraged people to embrace his versions of Christianity to avoid hell. 

The audience was vast and quite furious about his rhetoric. When I told several audience members that he was an “attention whore,” they acknowledged that they were aware of this. However, they still wanted to watch him because they were “bored” and found him “entertaining.”

I agree with him on many things, specifically about hedonism. Hedonism is the ideology of prioritizing seeking pleasure over everything else, and it can be extremely self-destructive. 

In my first year, I was disheartened to see how students, given their first taste of freedom, put themselves in stressful, dangerous, and humiliating situations, perhaps due to social pressure. They engaged in binge drinking, drug use and hookup culture. In addition, people let social media consume much of their lives, and many people I met may have lacked critical thinking skills because of it.

I agree with Brother Matt that hedonism is wrong, but I fundamentally disagree with his approach of criticizing people, not their actions. His rhetoric may make students want to be even more indulgent as a form of rebellion against his words. 

Brother Matt mentioned how many students have distanced themselves from traditional, often Christian, values that are time-tested. Many can benefit from the discipline found in religion, just as I have when becoming more observant of my Judaism.  

Before I became religious, I was not a happy person. Life felt like scuba diving in a murky cave, and being a nihilistic atheist made things even more confusing.  My parents had gone through a rough divorce, I hated my school, and I was lonely. But the choice to live my life as if God was present gave me a direction on where to swim in that murky water. 

Despite initially being disheartened by what I saw in Chico and how it conflicted with values I didn’t even know I had, I found a community. I started going to the Chabad Jewish Center regularly. By the second semester, I began keeping Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, by staying off my electronics and not doing any homework from Friday night to Saturday night. 

Going to Chabad showed me that the institution of marriage is worth preserving, as I saw examples of good family values. Their children are homeschooled and live a “sheltered” life away from much of the internet, but their relentless study of Torah, Talmud, and other things makes them better critical thinkers than most secular kids I met.

After my first year at Chico State, I attended a 40-day yeshiva program in New York during the summer, studying the Torah, Talmud and Chassidus in the Catskills mountains. There, I saw more examples of beautiful families, expanded my values system and lived as my ancestors may have lived a century ago.  

With all the good that happened from being more religious, I want the same for others. Although I have theological disagreements with Christianity, people should still consider what it offers. My best friend is Catholic and one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. Ben Shapiro, despite being an orthodox Jew, regularly encourages Christians to go to church because, ultimately, the community, discipline and time-tested values are something that is lacking in this country.

Islam has the same merits as I observed how my friend, an exchange student from Azerbaijan, felt when he went to a mosque during the tail end of Ramadan last year. Being in a community of other people who shared common values and customs made him feel less isolated. 

Unfortunately, Brother Matt’s words did more to harm the cause of Christianity than to promote it. He is no better than the fringe group of Jews who pushed me away from Judaism for years because of their extreme “fire and brimstone” rhetoric. However, Jews like Chabad want you to show up for meals, occasionally put tefillin, light candles on Shabbat, and then let you decide to take the leap of faith.

They never judge others for being less educated or observant in Judaism but are still unapologetic in their values. Perhaps if Brother Matt had tried something similar to what Chabad was doing, as well as other missionaries like Cliffe Knechtle, who use patience, curiosity and compassion, he would have accomplished something.  

No matter how much I tried to understand his position and defend his right to free speech, he ignored me and returned to preaching. I realized that even giving him grace was a waste of time. He is an ideologue and could not be reasoned with; we would have been better off leaving him be. 

We will encounter many “Brother Matts” in life, many with good ideas but bad arguments and an inability to be reasoned with. We must remain vigilant and not become like them, no matter how noble we believe our cause to be.

Ari Sorokin can be reached at orionmanagingeditor@gmail.com.